In All Deep Places

by Susan Meissner

  “How’s this?” I said, handing it to Kieran.

  “That’s good.”

  Then he paused.

  “Can I do it alone?” he said, looking up at me and his sister.

  “Oh! Sure!” I said. Norah rose to her feet. “We’ll just be right outside.”

  I led Norah outside the closet, and we waited by the foot of the stairs.

  “Thank you for everything you did today,” she said. Her eyes glistened with emotion.

  “No big deal,” I replied, but I knew how shallow that sounded. “I mean, you would have done the same for me.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I would have.”

  Kieran emerged from behind the doors with the gift box in his hands.

  “Can we… give Tommy a funeral?” he asked, looking up at me.

  I looked down at the little box. It was no bigger than the box I’d buried a hamster in a decade ago, and its contents weighed even less. But I knew it carried a troublesome weight Norah had borne for years.

  “Sure,” I said.

  And we headed up the stairs.

  Nineteen

  The tornado that sent the residents of Halcyon fleeing to their basements took no lives, but it destroyed seven homes and one business on the south side of town and cut a swath across surrounding acres of juvenile corn plants, flattening them into tattered green ribbons. Many houses, like ours, had superficial damage, and even this to varying degrees. It was almost like Godzilla had walked through the streets of northern Halcyon swishing his tail, smashing a few windows and knocking down trees, but when he got to the other end of town he’d raised his reptile leg and brought it crashing down.

  On my street, Seventh Avenue, the path of the monster was marked just by a broken window here, an uprooted tree there. Some houses had missing roof shingles, some had portions of siding peeled away like sections of an orange—and some were suddenly without clotheslines, American flags, and plastic lawn animals because these things had simply disappeared.

  My tree house received little damage, which surprised me. A portion of the roof was gone and was nowhere in sight, but that was easily fixed the next day with a fresh piece of plywood and a few nails. In fact, that first day after the tornado, it seemed the whole town was busy putting things back together. With nearly all of Halcyon distracted, it was easy for three teenagers and one ten-year-old to drive out to the cemetery unnoticed.

  Earlier in the day, it had been on the tip of my tongue to suggest Tommy be buried in Nell’s backyard, but before I could even propose this plan, Kieran told me he wanted to bury his good friend Tommy in between Uncle Kenny—the hero uncle he never knew—and his father. My initial response was to protest, since the cemetery was owned by the city and I figured we would get into trouble if we were caught digging in the Janvik plot. But the tiny gift box that held imaginary clothes would require nothing bigger than a small hole. In all likelihood no one would ever know what we were about to do.

  Ethan had taken the news of Tommy’s existence and then sudden nonexistence rather well, I thought, and he actually surprised me by wanting to come to the “funeral.” I told Norah and Kieran after lunch that day that while the adults were busy with insurance adjustors and other clean-up efforts, I would take them to the cemetery at two o’clock. I was prepared to tell my mom, if she asked why I needed the car, that I was taking the Janvik kids to visit Darrel’s grave, which wasn’t exactly a lie.

  At two o’clock, and the four of us headed to the cemetery. It took only minutes to get there and park the car. I was grateful that no one else was around. The way to the Janvik plot was familiar; it hadn’t been all that long ago that we’d all been there on the cold November morning Darrel was laid to rest. I carried a small shovel as we walked up the knoll to the tree that kept the departed Janviks in shaded repose. Norah had plucked a few begonias from Mrs. Liekfisch’s yard, and she held these in her hand. We got to the Janvik plot and stopped. I waited for Kieran to choose the place.

  “This is a good spot,” he said, pointing with his toe to the grass in between the Janvik brothers’ headstones.

  I plunged the blade of the shovel into the earth, scooping out a scalp of sod first and then several more shovelfuls of dirt. Within seconds the small opening was ready. I stepped back.

  Kieran knelt down and placed the box in the hole, touching the lid with his fingers before he stood back up again.

  “Shouldn’t we say something?” he said to me.

  “Well, sure. You can say whatever you want.”

  Kieran looked back at the little white box. “Thanks for being a good friend, Tommy. I will never forget you.”

  He stopped and Norah reached down and placed the begonias on top of the box.

  “Can we sing something, too?” Kieran said, turning his head to Luke again.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “I want to sing ‘Away in the Manger.’”

  “The Christmas carol?” Norah said as she rose to her feet.

  “Not the verse about no crib for a bed or about baby Jesus never crying. The other one about all the dear children.”

  “I don’t know that verse,” Norah said.

  “I know it,” I said, quietly.

  “So do I,” Ethan said, and I turned to him, oddly grateful.

  “Can you sing it? I don’t know all the words,” Kieran said.

  I took a breath. I hated singing in front of people. Ethan nodded. Start and I’ll join you, his eyes said.

  I began, my voice sounding rough and tuneless in my ears. Ethan chimed in on the fourth word:

  Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay

  Close by me forever and love me I pray

  Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care

  And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.

  “Yes,” Kieran said softly. “That’s the one. Can you sing it again?

  So I began it again, Ethan joined me, and so did Kieran, and by the time we got to “Bless all the dear children,” Norah had joined in, too.

  “’Bye, Tommy,” Kieran said, and he reached down and took a handful of earth and tossed it over the box. He turned to me and asked for the shovel. I gave it to him. Kieran put the rest of the dirt over the box with the shovel and I carefully replaced the first layer of sod I had dug out over the top.

  We stood.

  A few minutes later the four of them walked back down the little hill to the parking lot and left.

  We went back into town where all around us was the noise of saws and forklifts and hammers putting wrong things to right.

  The summer months passed as the summer months had in years past, but I felt there was a peculiar finality about them. They were the last summer months I would spend as a high-school student. Next May I would graduate. I would head off to college and the rest of my life. I was impatient for both.

  It was different having Norah and Kieran in school and knowing they were actually going to be staying the whole year. At least that was the plan. Norah joined me on the stage crew for the fall musical, which made her a bona fide member of the drama clique and kept our afternoons and evenings busy.

  With a little persuading, my father convinced Nell to let him help Norah with her behind-the-wheel practice so that in October she passed her driving test and got her license. She was happy to have it even though she didn’t have a car of her own to drive.

  In November, my South Dakota grandparents drove down for Thanksgiving and, as in years past, my mother invited the Janviks to join us. To my surprise, Nell accepted the invitation. She was quiet during the meal, and did not stay long afterward but it appeared to me that Nell was almost content with the way things were. Almost. Nell still seemed to regard Norah as a pariah of sorts—like someone who reminded her of all that was wrong with her life.

  A major snowstorm kept most of Iowa blanketed in their homes the week of Christmas. We, along with most of Halcyon, stayed home. And while my mom invited the Janviks to Christmas dinner, Norah declined for them, s
aying that Nell planned to roast a turkey.

  In February, Nell fell on a patch of ice on her driveway and broke both wrists. At first it appeared to be just another stroke of really bad luck for Nell Janvik, but as I watched Norah care for her it turned out to be best thing that could have happened; at least for Norah. Nell could do nothing for herself. She couldn’t work or drive or cook or even light her own cigarettes for several weeks. Norah did everything for her. And though I never went over to Nell’s house, I could see how Norah cared for Nell by the silent images I saw in the Janvik windows. I could see—even when the sheers were pulled and my view somewhat obscured—that Nell had slowly began to see Norah as something other than a reminder of her losses.

  By March, I had decided to attend the University of Iowa, even though it hadn’t been on my list of “far away” colleges. It had a great writing program and was close enough to home to keep my mother happy. Plus I was offered a good financial aid package as an Iowa resident. New York or Hollywood would come later—I was sure of that.

  I didn’t go into the tree house much anymore, but every now and then the branches outside my window would beckon me and I would make my way into the aged wooden refuge. Sometimes Norah joined me. It was in the tree house that I told her that I’d be moving to Iowa City in August to attend college and that I was hoping to get an apartment and a job so that I didn’t have to come home during the summer months.

  “Why don’t you want to come home in the summer?” she had asked.

  “There just isn’t anything here for me,” I said, before I had time to consider how that sounded.

  “Your family is here,” she said softly, and I could tell there was deeper meaning behind the words.

  “Yes,” I said, looking down at her hands, remembering how on three occasions she had touched me; once at Goose Pond and once there in the tree house when she begged me not to tell my parents about Tommy, and the third time in my mother’s canning closet when the world above us was being wrenched apart by twisted winds. “But my family will be my family no matter where I am. No address is going to change that.”

  “But being away will change other things.”

  She didn’t elaborate and I did not ask her to.

  It was also in the tree house that I told Norah I was taking Patti to my senior prom.

  She had nodded. But it was a nod of contradictions. Her eyes betrayed her confusion.

  “So, why are you telling me this?” she said when I told her.

  “Because I wanted you to know that Patti and I are just friends,” I replied.

  “Just friends,” Norah said absently, like she was tasting the words.

  “It’s not like I am dating her, ’cause I’m not.”

  “Okay.”

  “Patti thinks maybe I should have asked you, but I didn’t think Nell would let you go since you’re just a sophomore and Nell, well, Nell—”

  “It’s okay,” Norah interrupted me. She had an odd look of satisfaction on her face; like she had just found out she had been right all along about something. “I understand. I don’t think she would have let me go either.”

  “It’s kind of dumb anyway,” I said. “None of the guys like getting all dressed up like that and parading around in front of our parents at the Grand March.”

  “Mmm,” Norah said.

  After a few seconds of silence, I decided I was finished talking about the prom. “Heard from your mom lately?” I asked.

  Norah shook her head. “It’s been awhile. I don’t think she has anything new to say. That’s why she waits so long in between letters. But it’s okay. When she does write, she tells Kieran and me all the things we’ll do when she gets out.”

  It had been a long time since I had seen Belinda. It was hard to imagine her in jail. It was harder to imagine her showing up on Nell’s doorstep in a year or two to collect her children.

  On the day of the prom, Norah didn’t come to the house while Patti and I had our pictures taken, though she had been invited to come over, nor did she show up at the Grand March. In fact, neither she nor Kieran appeared for Sunday dinner the next day though they had been invited the week before. I purposely went into the tree house at ten o’clock that Sunday night with a small bag in my hand, hoping Norah would show up. I had something for her.

  I waited until ten-fifteen and was about to climb back into my bedroom when I heard the sound of movement on the garage roof next to me. A few seconds later, Norah climbed inside.

  “I saw your lantern was on,” she said, taking a seat just on the other side of me.

  “You didn’t come to dinner,” I said.

  “Kieran had a stomachache.”

  “Oh?”

  “I gave him some Pepto-Bismol. He’s feeling better now.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess I should have called your mom. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It was an open invitation. She knows you can’t come every time.”

  She looked at the bag I held in his hands. “What’s that?” she asked.

  I reached into the bag and pulled out a wrist corsage made of lilies of the valley and silvery-white ribbon. “This was Patti’s corsage from last night,” I said. “It still looks pretty good, considering. She wanted you to have it.”

  I held the corsage out to her and Norah took it, touching the tiny white flowers with her fingertips.

  “She wanted me to have it?”

  “Yeah, she did.”

  Norah pulled the corsage onto her wrist and held her arm out to admire it. “Patti’s probably the only girlfriend I have ever had who treats me like I’m somebody important.”

  I paused for a moment. “Patti’s an exceptional person.”

  “But you’re not in love with her?”

  I coughed. “No, she’s a good friend, that’s it.”

  Norah pulled her arm back to her chest and brought the tiny flowers close to her cheek. “I think she may be in love with you, though.”

  I looked away. I knew Patti was attracted to me. But I had never been able to figure out why. Nor did I know why I was not likewise attracted to her. Patti was as close to perfection as a person could get. But it surprised me that Norah picked up on this.

  “She deserves someone better than me,” I said.

  Norah looked up at him. “What do you mean, better than you?”

  “She deserves someone who will love her back.”

  Norah nodded slowly. “Yes, she does.”

  I shifted my weight, pulled my legs up and leaned forward. “It will be better for her when we go our separate ways, when I go to college in Iowa City and she goes to college in Pennsylvania. Then she can meet someone who will fall head over heels in love with her.”

  “Is that what you are hoping will happen to you?”

  I swallowed. “Maybe.”

  A few moments of stillness followed and I wished somehow we could change the subject. Norah’s questions made me feel uneasy.

  “I got a note from my mom and a package.” Norah finally said, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. She didn’t say a whole lot in her note, but she had a friend get this necklace for me.” Norah reached behind her neck. Then she placed a silver pendant in her palm and then leaned forward to show it to me. I leaned forward, too, to look at it.

  “It’s a little sand dollar dipped in silver. They are all over the beaches in Mexico,” Norah said. “If you break open a sand dollar there are these little formations inside that look just like doves. They are so beautiful. Like little white birds.”

  I looked down at the pendant in Norah’s hand. My face was very close to hers. I caught the fragrance of her hair. It reminded me of vanilla.

  “The thing is,” Norah said, “you have to break the sand dollar to get them out. So even though you have the little white birds, you don’t have the sand dollar anymore. It’s broken to bits. And you can’t fix it.”

  She looked up then and her face looked sad, like she had p
ockets full of little white birds and the ruins of sand dollars all around her to prove they were hers. “Sometimes it just feels like it’s never going to come,” she whispered.

  “What’s never going to come?” I asked.

  She looked away for a second, like she was searching for the right word.

  “The day when everything’s right. Everything,” she said, turning her head back to face me.

  When her flannel-gray eyes met mine, I instinctively reached out and touched her cheek with my hand. It began as a gesture of compassion, but when Norah leaned into my palm and I felt the smoothness of her skin and the delicate shape of her jaw, a strange sensation crept over me. I felt a tug inside that compelled me to move toward her, as if the shared moments of our past had formed a magnet and that magnet had suddenly found the very thing it was attracted to. I stroked the softness of her cheek with my thumb. Without forethought, I bent down and kissed her, gently drawing her face toward mine. I’d never kissed anyone in that way before. Never on the lips, and never in that way. It was electrifying. And powerful. Something deep within me—though perhaps it was just simple desire—stirred. The force of it astonished me. I broke away.

  “I don’t know why I did that,” I whispered. I was glad the tree house was in semidarkness. I could feel embarrassment pulsing across my face.

  But Norah didn’t seem to be wondering why I did it. Or maybe she was. I couldn’t tell.

  “Norah, I’m sorry,” I began, but she reached out and placed a finger on my lips to silence me.

  I was about to say something anyway, when Kieran’s voice from across Nell’s garage roof broke the moment. “Norah, I can’t sleep. My tummy still hurts. Can you come back now?”

  Norah removed her fingertips from my lips and brushed them across my cheek.

  “Coming, Kieran,” she said, but she was looking at me.

  I sat in bewildered silence as Norah made her way back across a wide limb that would take her to the garage roof and then her bedroom window. I saw her hands reach across to the branch above her to steady her body as she made her way across, and I could just make out the tiny lilies on her left wrist as she moved away from me.